It Might Be Impossible For The Feds To Shut Down A Site That Lets People Buy And Sell Illegal Drugs

Dread Pirate Roberts is the
anonymous owner and operator of the Silk Road, the anonymous
marketplace where people can buy illegal drugs online.

This is the Silk Road's second go-around — it was shut down once
before with the arrest of Ross Ulbricht, the alleged former
owner. It has since relaunched with new management and is
currently operating outside the reach of the feds.

If anything were to happen that threatened the continued
operation of the site — even if the new Dread Pirate Roberts were
arrested and held in lockup somewhere — it would be unaffected
and would continue to operate per usual. He revealed how this is
possible
in an
interview with Ars Technica,saying:

There is only one person in the
world that knows who [my second in command] is — me. So unless
the feds have me they can never take down the Road, because as
soon as I am missing he knows to just move servers and hit the
killswitch on my access. Just think how much the FBI will be
squirming in their seats and red-faced again if they could arrest
the Dread Pirate Roberts and the Road continues to function in
their face.

Just like the fictional Dread Pirate Roberts from "The Princess
Bride," there appears to be a new DPR ready to step in should the
current one no longer be able to keep things running.